


Art of the Swoon

by richcreamerybutter



Category: Ghost (Sweden Band)
Genre: ABBA References, Bridgerton, Daphne Bridgerton - Freeform, M/M, Masturbation, almost public masturbation, but they reminded me SO much of them, cardinals serve popes right, childish metaphors, copia thinking about papa, fantasising, innocent copia, papa and copia are not brothers, papa emeritus iii's neat penis, references to masturbation, stupid idea really, the duke of hastings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-19 01:08:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29742684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/richcreamerybutter/pseuds/richcreamerybutter
Summary: Like many people, I have recently watched Bridgerton. And a specific moment from episode three gave me a fun idea.Papa Emeritus III accidentally discovers that Cardinal Copia is a thousand times more innocent than he could ever have imagined.
Relationships: Cardinal Copia/Papa Emeritus III
Comments: 10
Kudos: 22





	1. What Happens At Night

**Author's Note:**

> The person this is dedicated to knows who they are!
> 
> I enjoy and value our cheese and cat chats very much c:

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some of the dialogue is lifted directly from the episode. I think it's obvious but I'd better be blatant so no one thinks I'm that smart.  
> PS - another case of 'I can't get my head around my important fics right now but I can't NOT be writing', so excuse the silliness. My eyes won't stay open but I'm not sleepy. I don't know what the hell is wrong with me?

The arrangement worked. Copia didn't ask too many questions – he knew Papa wouldn't mind answering them, which was precisely why he didn't ask. Just turned up when called upon, chatted a bit of shit with his pope, and made sure he was ready for whatever the day was about to throw at him. Most days this wasn't a problem. Tired, hung over, or walking bow-legged, he was normally able to power through, and Copia had nothing but respect for that. There were, of course, the days where he needed a bucket of water emptied over his head, or shoving in the shower and holding upright, but these were few and far between.

This morning, he seemed to be mostly affected by the standard sort of fatigue. He was smudgey – he must have gone straight to bed with his face paint still on, only to have it semi-licked and kissed and smeared off by his conquests. He was rubbing his eyes as he looked up at Copia, and the black paint travelled even further down onto his cheekbones.

'Hey ...'

'Good morning, starshine,' Copia said. 'Good night?'

Papa stretched, with a yawn. 'Pretty good,' he said, 'yes. Thank you. I am tired, though. I think I may need a couple of days off. I only intended to take one Sister to bed last night, but we got chatting to one of her friends, and it would have been rude to turn them away ...'

Copia rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. Papa's generosity would be the death of him, no doubt. 'And they were appreciative?'

'Very. I mean ... they entertained themselves for much of the time,' Papa said. He stretched again, the little dark fluffs under his arms visible as he raised his arms. 'I don't think they minded, though. That is the beauty of having more than one partner at a time, Copia. If you need a break, there's always someone else willing to hold the fort.'

This. This was the sort of thing Copia was happy not to know too much about. There had been a time, back when Papa had first chosen him as his personal Cardinal of sorts, where he was even less private about what he got up to in his quarters at night. It wasn't until he had noticed that Copia averted his eyes when he swung out of bed, totally naked, to shower each morning that he realised that not everyone in the ministry partook of these pleasures.

To his credit, he had been completely mortified.

'Oh, shit, I am _so_ sorry,' he had said. 'I just assumed that you did all this sort of stuff, too.'

'It was a fair assumption,' Copia had said, but he knew his face was as red as his cassock. 'Most people _do_ ... do all this sort of stuff, after all.'

He'd never _quite_ let on how inexperienced he was in the bedroom. There were some things he didn't want to know of Papa, and there were some things he didn't want Papa to know of him. And once those things had been established, it got a lot easier to meet him in his room of a morning and tidy up after him. Just another Cardinal-ly duty.

Papa made to get out of bed, but he kept such a firm hold on his duvet that he swung the whole thing off the bed with him. He had it pinned around his waist. A whole, queen-sized duvet. Just dragging along the bedroom floor towards his ensuite.

'Anything need sterilising, your Unholiness?' Copia said, and Papa smiled.

'No,' he said. 'I don't think so. Just the usual laundry today, thank you.'

He winked behind him before sidling into the bathroom, dropping the duvet just as he closed the door. 'Five minutes and we'll go down to breakfast, huh? Is that OK?' he called.

'Okie dokie.' Copia was already stripping the bed, gathering up the duvet and trying to avoid the stiff, crusty bits. He had, in all fairness, become an expert at that.

By the time Papa emerged from the bathroom in a fragrant cloud of steam, one towel around his waist and another on his head, Copia had replaced the bedding, opened a window and lit an incense stick to try to eliminate that musty, sexy smell. Papa smiled at him.

'I don't know about you, but I need a fucking strong coffee,' he said.

'As does that Sister and her friend, from the sound of things,' Copia said.

'OK, I know I said they did all of the work, but they were both much younger than me ...'

Copia shook his head. 'Dirty old man.'

'I'm not saying ...' Papa opened one of his wardrobes with an amused sigh, shaking his head. Inside hung ten identical black suits, complete with long, white shirts. 'They were in their thirties!' He pulled out a suit. 'And I don't mean when you add their ages together, either.'

'You're beastly!' Copia said. 'Never mind ...'

Papa burst out laughing. 'Do you really think I would do something like that? Even I am not that immoral, Copia.'

'I just – I didn't mean –' Copia could feel his face flushing, and Papa's laugh faded, replaced by a wide smile.

'No, I am not laughing at you,' he said. 'I am laughing at the insanity of your naïvety. Sometimes I forget. You really are one-of-a-kind, aren't you?'

A compliment? Papa was still smiling, so Copia decided to take it as such – despite not really understanding what Papa was trying to say. He accepted the mock-friendly ruffle to the hair as Papa strode back to the bathroom with his clean clothes, closing the door behind him. Copia could still hear him when he started singing.

' _Last night I was taking a walk along the river_...'

Copia joined in, but he kept his voice low. He would, he told himself, probably rather die than have anyone hear him sing. Especially Papa.

Papa himself was singing the chorus, attempting to sing every vocal line at once, when he emerged from the bathroom, smoothing some product into his hair, smelling of vanilla and sandalwood, and looking very much like someone who had had a good night's rest. Copia suspected undereye concealer was doing a lot of the work, but his singing was admittedly peppier than it had any right to be.

'I do not know how you keep this up,' he said, once Papa had given up and finished with the _no no no no no_ part. 'Most of the things you take an interest in, you _lose_ interest in a month later.'

'Well. Have you tired of pulling the pope yet?'

Copia frowned. 'What?'

Papa picked up a pair of black shoes from his shoe rack, sitting on the bed to put them on.

'You keep going back for more no matter how many times you do it, don't you?' he said. 'It is one of few things in life that never gets old.'

'Papa, I ... I have no idea what you mean,' said Copia.

Papa was adjusting his spats, frowning as he tried to get them perfectly matched. 'You know? Spanking the monkey, the five knuckle shuffle?' He raised his head, removed one hand from his shoes to gesture in the air, making a sort of open fist and shaking it.

Which did not enlighten Copia any further. 'These are just words to me. What are you talking about?'

Papa smiled: his friend didn't partake in these night time rituals the way most of the rest of the clergy did, but he often forgot that. It meant he possessed an innocence younger than his years, and now and again, it popped up to surprise him. 'I mean when you touch yourself.'

Those words, though, still did not dispel the confusion on Copia's face, and that really did surprise him.

'You do ... touch yourself?' said Papa.

Copia just continued to stare.

He had absolutely no idea how to respond to this. He had the _vaguest_ idea as to what Papa might be getting at, but he wasn't used to being involved in such discussions. The furthest they ever went were vague notions as to what Papa might have done with his partners, where certain vibrating toys may have been inserted, etc. Copia always felt removed from it, no desire to partake in anything similar for himself. He couldn't understand why anyone would, if he were honest. He had never once looked at another person, or indeed a ghoul, and wondered what it might be like to ... to do whatever the hell it was Papa did with them.

Except Papa seemed to be hinting at something that he wouldn't _need_ another person or ghoul for.

Papa's face had softened. He stood up to walk towards Copia, whose face didn't waver. Lips parted, eyes wide.

'When you are alone,' Papa said, under his breath – as though concerned he might be overheard in the otherwise empty room. Copia's expression was too fragile to disturb. 'You can touch yourself. Anywhere on your body, anywhere that gives you pleasure. But especially between your legs.'

His voice had deepened, and Copia's eyes twitched open a little wider.

'When you find the feeling you particularly enjoy, you can carry on with that until the feeling grows, and then eventually you reach a pinnacle. A release.'

Copia still did not know what he was supposed to say. When it became apparent that he was going to merely continue staring, in awe or disgust or ... _something_ , Papa cleared his throat.

'And that should help you.' He nodded towards the door. 'Come.'

And Papa stood aside to let the bemused, quiet Copia slip out of the door before him.


	2. Both Physical and Intangible

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Copia's overcome by the desire to try Papa's suggestion for himself.

Papa had a cock inside his vestments.

It wasn't something Copia had ever thought about so _tangibly._ He was aware that many people had these things, of course. In fact, he was aware of Papa's more than almost anyone else's, having had his own private view of it swinging about between his legs in those early days of Cardinalship before he had found it in himself to squeak out that he would rather Papa covered himself in his presence, if that wasn't so terribly inconvenient. But, all of a sudden, the knowledge was difficult to ignore.

Their day was not busy. Both of them were retiring to their offices to undergo various tasks, and Copia was relieved that he didn't have to sit in a sermon, squirming in his seat at the idea that, as Papa preached and prayed and led them all in Satanic hymns, there was a cock up there behind that pulpit, too.

But first came breakfast. And as they sat together, surrounded by the scraping, chewing and low-level chatter that characterised the earliest meal of the day, Copia could not help but refuse his usual sausages, instead opting for extra helpings of bacon. If he was going to get much work done today, he needed to forget about his pope's penis.

A smaller, but somehow neater penis than his own. He had seen him with that post-sleep hardness a couple of times, so he knew how it changed between its flaccid state and its erect one. He had heard the phrase _a grower not a shower_ before, and that was probably what one would say about Papa. Soft, it nestled into his balls quite snugly, but when he was hard he boasted a more impressive length. Copia was just big and broad all the time. Hard _and_ soft, although he tried not to think about those things when he was hard. It just sort of _happened_ from time to time, and when it did, he had always felt the best policy was to pretend it wasn't happening at all.

He knew, of course, what caused the stickiness he sometimes woke up with. But that wasn't his fault. He was asleep, he could hardly be blamed for that.

But what Papa had said indicated that it might be OK if he consciously did something to bring about that end.

 _You can touch yourself. Anywhere on your body, anywhere that gives you pleasure.  
  
_ Copia's office had long, arched windows that afforded him a beautiful view of the ministry's herb garden. On summer days, when he had to succumb to opening his windows to ease the pressured heat from working in what essentially became a greenhouse, he was rewarded with the most gentle scent of lavender from bushes nearby, too. It made it worth tolerating the giggles and chatter of siblings and ghouls who took their leisure time outside with no mind for those who were still working.  
  
Today, though, he longed to be able to close his blinds without facing the inevitable questions from anyone who walked past.  
  
Even sitting at his desk, beginning the business of the day, that stupid _stronzetto_ played on his mind. It was not as though he could ignore his existence when half of his work concerned him. Hot rage surged within him: Papa was his _boss._ Why had he brought up such … matters? It was quite one thing to clean up after sexual exploits, and quite another to confront his own lack of sexual anything whatsoever.  
  
He was poring over a letter from the head of another church. When he reached the signature at the bottom, he allowed his eyes to keep travelling for a momentary glance at his own crotch.  
  
 _But especially between your legs …  
  
_ That had to mean nowhere other than the penis.  
  
He was sure the thought made his own twitch, and he wrenched his gaze back up again, terrified that somebody outside might have seen him paying himself a little too much attention – even Papa had said that this was something to be indulged in in one's own company, not beside almost wall-length windows.  
  
 _Cazzo._ Did that mean he was really … _considering …_?  
  
No. There was too much to be done. And, after about fifteen minutes of forced concentration, Copia's unsettled dick had calmed down enough to allow him to become lost, as usual, in his work.

It was not a bad day, really. He stretched his arms some time later, squeezed his shoulder blades together to ease the stiffness from being hunched over his writing desk, and turned to observe the grounds.

The timing could not have been more unfortunate. Papa strode into frame about three seconds later.

He was not alone. He was nodding along with a ghoul – which one, Copia wasn't sure, as there were so many he didn't know well that it was almost impossible for him to tell them apart – a deep crease in his painted forehead and his hands folded behind his back. Papa in full papal regalia was a sight to behold. There were subtle differences between the way people approached you when you were walking alone or walking by his side. Copia was met with respect around the ministry, yes, but when he and Papa travelled together there was a new level to it. You could see people nod, avoid eye contact, even shy away as those robes rippled past. It was not out of fear. Many of these same people had shared Papa's bed, on multiple occasions. You simply did not bother that man when he was going about his business, and you wanted him to know how determined you were not to bother him.

So strange, that Papa was nothing like that. He loved being bothered. His presence simply gave a false impression that he was guarded and untouchable …

_You can touch yourself._

Copia's body softened in his chair. He scraped the legs across the floor with an unpleasant squealing noise as he shuffled himself under his desk, belly pushed right up against it. Something tingling and heated had fizzed between his legs and he was terrified there was physical evidence of it. Breathing hard, he checked Papa's attention was still on his ghoul before tipping his chair back and glancing under the table.

Nothing obvious. His trousers just looked like trousers, for the time being.

He sat back down heavily, crashing his stomach into the desk with a sharp _ow_. It must almost have been time for lunch: he checked the old grandfather clock in the corner of the room to find it was still about half an hour before he could have respectfully wandered off to pursue food. Was it this distracted mindset that was dragging the morning out so much? With a sigh, he turned back to his window. The ghoul was talking now, as they and Papa meandered past mint and chives and rosemary.

Then Papa's eyes flicked from his ghoul's face to Copia's window. He caught Copia looking, and the right corner of his lips twitched upwards. An almost imperceptible raise of his hand in greeting, then he refocused his attention on the ghoul.

Copia's palm pushed against the soft bulge in his trousers, and he sighed as the sensation seemed to ease one sort of pressure as well as building another.

_Not in his office._

But the pressure – both kinds – felt good to play with. He rocked the heel of his palm into himself a few times, slowly, just to enjoy the way it teased at a heat in his gut. Like he could never do it _quite_ enough. An itch that should have gone away with a swift scratch, but that was in fact getting worse the more attention he gave it.

Papa and the ghoul had wandered on, leaving the view from the window free of anybody who might be able to see in.

He closed his eyes. The bulge was not _entirely_ soft any more, and therefore not entirely able to blend into his clothing the way it usually did, but he could not stop himself massaging it –

Voices, from the corridor outside, snapped him back into the moment. He pushed his chair back so that he was sitting comfortably with his crotch still hidden underneath the desk, looking at his door in anticipation, but the voices kept moving until he could not hear them any more.

A close one. He sighed, angrily now, at himself and his recklessness. Just because Papa had given him such _notions,_ did not mean they needed acting upon, no matter how hungry for more his now-twitching cock felt.

The sensations down there, in fact, were sort of trying to overtake everything else now.

 _Fuck it,_ a phrase Copia had never said aloud in his life, was what came to mind as he pulled his blinds closed.

This was too intriguing. His intellectual curiosity was not the only thing demanding satisfaction any more: when he pulled his chair back, glanced down, the shape of his cock was becoming more and more prominent through his red trousers. No longer a mere collection of soft, dangly objects, now very much a penis. That was not the impression he liked to give people. He assumed that everyone else, like he had been once upon a time, was happy to pretend that nobody carried any sort of genitalia on their person whatsoever.

He locked the door, too. Then turned off his desk lamp, just to be safe. People would just have to presume he was in a meeting, if just for a short while.

Surely, it would only take a short while.

Heart pounding, he settled back down in his chair for a few deep breaths. Something about this still didn't feel quite right. Papa's permission was usually law around here, but he also wouldn't have put it past him to have been winding him up – although the sincerity with which he'd explained the act had been very convincing.

At the end of the day, though, two things were in place that eased his mind. One, he was indeed all alone with no means of being caught by somebody else, and two, it was his dick and he ought to have been the only person who could dictate what was and was not done with it.

And right then, in his warm office with the thoughts of Papa and his duvet-skirt and his majestic robes and his tiny little wave, he wanted to touch it.

He tried a few more rubs through his trousers before he realised that, if things were going to end the way he was starting to suspect they might, there would be a stain. Making sure there he could hear no voices, either from the grounds or from the corridor, he started to undo his flies. His boxer shorts already sported a wet spot, which only made him more desperate in his self-longing.

Was this sexual arousal, then? This strange, hot feeling of being placed on charge from the inside? Was this what drove Papa into bed with various others, once the lights of the ministry were out and the moon hung in the sky instead?

It was difficult to imagine this desperation to be touched multiplied by two. Or three, or more, where Papa was concerned.

His cock was semi-hard when he unearthed it from his underwear, and the skin-on-skin contact this afforded him released a gasp. That pressure was back, eased by the freedom and the fresh air, but building at the prospect that there was now nothing stopping him from really, truly touching himself. Among his books and papers, right beside his desk. He fingered the very tip, manipulating the foreskin and letting his mouth fall open – he was sensitive here, and even as he teased he could see himself hardening. A fascinating process, actually. He thought about how this must look when it happened to Papa, pictured him swelling at his own delicate touch, enjoying the idea of arousal turning that neat little dick into something else entirely.

Why did this feel even better when he thought about Papa?

A wetness at his tip startled him – he was leaking from his slit, and as he wiped the sticky fluid away, the motion compelled him to wrap his fingers around his girth and drag them all the way down to the balls that were smaller, tighter than usual. He could not suppress a low groan at this: almost complete stimulation. He couldn't stop when he reached the base, either, taking his hand back up again. He leant back, slipped a few inches forward in his seat. This must be it. His hand seemed to know what it was supposed to be doing now, a steady, even stroking that made the hot feeling in his abdomen rise and fall. Each peak was a little higher than the last, and he began to feel as though he might be chasing the highest peak of all.

He was lost in it now.

_When you find the feeling you particularly enjoy, you can carry on with that until the feeling grows …_

This was easy. All he had to do was move his hand, up and down, growing faster the closer he got to what he suspected was the _pinnacle_ Papa had warned him about. Again, thinking about Papa. Did he do this, ever, he wondered? He spent so much time with others that perhaps he didn't feel the need to pleasure himself when he was alone …

But he had mentioned it in the first place, like it was no big deal. He must have done it.

Papa. Sitting like Copia was now, alone in his room. On that magnificent bed, cock in hand. And Copia grunted against his will as the thought intensified the heat.

If this felt any more pleasurable, he was worried he might explode.

But he couldn't stop. That fantasy was locked in his mind, the rhythm of his hand unbreakable. He was whispering Papa's name to himself as the peaks drew closer and closer together, heading for something that would undoubtedly dwarf them all –

All whisperings silenced as he found that pinnacle. His eyes rolled, he threw his head back, and he made a sort of chesty grunting sound as his entire body was eclipsed by the most intense physical sensation he had ever experienced that felt, somehow, beyond tangibility at the same time. A spurting of the whiteish fluid he had come to expect took him by surprise nevertheless, ejected from his slit with such force that it splashed places he would never have imagined it would be able to reach

'Oh, _merda_ …' Why was his voice so high-pitched? ' _Cazzo_ …'

 _So much for not staining my clothing,_ he thought to himself, when he examined the damage – but that hardly seemed to matter.

When the high was gone, it was replaced by a rare sort of warm contentment that a busy Cardinal finds very difficult to come by in his ordinary life. He could almost have curled up and gone to sleep, safe in the knowledge that that sleep would be restful and refreshing and filled with pleasant dreams.

But a few moments later, he seemed to come back to himself. He hadn't realised he'd forgotten where he was until he remembered: those closed blinds, the locked door. Voices in the corridor that might have been there for a very long time, but that he would not have noticed. Had they heard his ecstasy?

Quickly, panic gripping him, he stuffed his soft penis back into his underwear, zipped up his trousers, and scrambled for some tissues from the box on his desk to sluice up the spots of spillage. He managed to get the worst of the semen off himself before he realised the voices had gone. Merely passing by.

He opened his blinds. Switched on the desk lamp. Turned the key in his door again before sitting back down, with a huge sigh. He felt rather stupid now, alone in his office without that hot feeling consuming him any more. He almost couldn't understand the mindset he had harboured several minutes ago, as present as it had been inside him. Maybe touching oneself did things to one's mind as well as one's body.

Papa had never said anything about what it did to one's mind, though. And Copia wasn't sure Papa would have been happy to find out exactly what _was_ on his mind as he followed his instructions.


End file.
